Monday, August 12, 2013

Tour of Flanders (Part 6)

+ Sitting in Dam Square--Plaza with loads of people passing by in the middle of Amsterdam.

+ Crepe like pancakes.

+ Surrounded by junker bikes with expensive security chains

+ Flower Market Cheese Shops

+ Majestic train station

o Canals--some real nice, some ho hum an dirty

o Rigks Museum--In classic building, with some major old works of art (if you like classic 16th-17th paintings, as their modern art collection is poor)

- No parks near the crowded city center

- Hard to walk with narrow sidewalks (2" wide) lined with posts and chained bikes blocking whatever room there is to walk.Amsterdam Photos

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Lots of Cheese Shops...

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...and pancake houses serving pancakes that looked more like crepes

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...and coffee houses that really didn't feature coffee

Lots of serious statues

A few modern ones and headscratchers

A grand train station and lots of narrow buildings

Mini markets with lots of energy "Stuff"

No windmills or dikes but Dam Square where you can watch the
world go by.

Of course lots of canals--some majestic--some ratty....

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You may be surrounded by canals but cruiser bicycles are omnipresent.
Kids casually thrown on handlebars, shoppers pulling up on
Dam Square to go luxury clothes shopping.

A few cruiser bikes I took note of and the winter cycling wear
already in the shops.

And so went our backpacking trip to Flanders. Only bad thing about backpacks
transitioning them on and off--but every time saw a tourist
wheeling a suitcase over cobbles or lifting it onto
the train I liked the backpack idea more and more